Author Iris Chang, Nov. 9

Author Iris Chang, Nov. 9

AFP/ Jimmy Estimada, file

Acclaimed Chinese-American author Iris Chang was found dead in her car, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said on Thursday. The 36-year-old writer and journalist was found dead in her car by another motorist on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004. Her car was found parked on Highway 17 near Los Gatos, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. Her best-known book was 1997's haunting The Rape of Nanking, which detailed the slaughter of Chinese civilians by the Imperial Japanese army that occupied China in the late 1930s. It was the first major full-length English-language account of the atrocity and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for months. A former newswire reporter, Chang was born in Princeton, N.J., and lived in San Jose, California.

Acclaimed Chinese-American author Iris Chang was found dead in her car, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said on Thursday. The 36-year-old writer and journalist was found dead in her car by another motorist on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004. Her car was found parked on Highway 17 near Los Gatos, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. Her best-known book was 1997's haunting The Rape of Nanking, which detailed the slaughter of Chinese civilians by the Imperial Japanese army that occupied China in the late 1930s. It was the first major full-length English-language account of the atrocity and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for months. A former newswire reporter, Chang was born in Princeton, N.J., and lived in San Jose, California. (AFP/ Jimmy Estimada, file)

Acclaimed Chinese-American author Iris Chang was found dead in her car, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said on Thursday. The 36-year-old writer and journalist was found dead in her car by another motorist on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004. Her car was found parked on Highway 17 near Los Gatos, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. Her best-known book was 1997's haunting The Rape of Nanking, which detailed the slaughter of Chinese civilians by the Imperial Japanese army that occupied China in the late 1930s. It was the first major full-length English-language account of the atrocity and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for months. A former newswire reporter, Chang was born in Princeton, N.J., and lived in San Jose, California.